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Comment by everdrive | Hacker News Reader

Are there _any_ good video game movies whatsoever? The 2005 Doom film was the easiest miss I'd ever seen. All they needed to do was remake Aliens, but with Doom. Instead of ending up in the Alien nest, you end up in hell. No idea how they managed to drop the ball on that one.

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The third Sonic the Hedgehog was hilarious: Jim Carrey really made the movie.

The movies stand by themselves; they take characters from the games and make movies around them.

My one issue is that they didn't involve much of the iconic soundtrack game soundtrack in the movie, which Super Mario Brothers fixed. I really wanted Sonic the Hedgehog to start with "Saaaaayyy-Gaaa" and then fade into the iconic intro music with a modern version of the hedgehog waving his finger at me.

I saw Sonic 2 and 3 at a dollar theater this summer with my kid. Both were shockingly entertaining.

Some of the best selling movies in the past couple of years were video game ones: Mario, Minecraft, Mario Galaxy were all huge. All close to or over a billion dollars at the box office. The Sonic films were popular, and Detective Pikachu was decent.

The new Mortal Kombat ones did pretty well, but I prefer the original.

Honestly, video game films have been outperforming super heroes for the past several years, though Spider-Man turned that around.

> best selling

The question was about "good" tho.

"Good" is subjective. Quite a large number of people think they're "good," in a time where it's hard to get people into theaters in the first place.

and I expect the upcoming Resident Evil film to be good with Zach Cregger (Weapons, Barbarian) writing+directing

There are decent ones as of late. The key revolves around not trying to tell a video game story in a different medium. Mario's movies, for instance, aren't trying to recreate mario 1 or whatnot and are just telling a story around the environments and motifs of Mario.

Not a Movie, but Arcane (from League of Legends) seems to be the peak example of a video game adaptation. Take the universe of an IP and tell a separate slice of a story within that universe, in a way where fixed pacing and cinematography can flex its strengths.

The Sonic movies are really well done. The last two Mortal Kombat's were pretty good- particularly the second one which is more true to the game after the setup in the first one. The first Mario movie was enjoyable but forgettable.

Most have been horrible or horribly mediocre. Financial success doesn't necessarily mean something is good either. Also, some of these are more like: "very loosely based on the video game, so much so that you have to squint very hard to see it." Stuff like Detective Pikachu, or Minecraft are just aesthetics and have little to do with the actual games.

Jun. 10, 2016 Warcraft Film

Dec. 21, 2016 Assassin's Creed Film

Jan. 27, 2017 Resident Evil: The Final Chapter Film

Mar. 16, 2018 Tomb Raider Film

Apr. 13, 2018 Rampage Film

May 10, 2019 Pokémon Detective Pikachu Film

Feb. 14, 2020 Sonic the Hedgehog Film

Dec. 4, 2020 Monster Hunter Film

Apr. 23, 2021 Mortal Kombat Film

Jun. 25, 2021 Werewolves Within Film

Feb. 18, 2022 Uncharted Film

Feb. 24, 2022 Halo TV series

Apr. 5, 2023 The Super Mario Bros. Movie Film

Apr. 8, 2022 Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Film

Jul. 14, 2022 Resident Evil TV series

Jan. 15, 2023 The Last of Us TV series

Jul. 27, 2023 Twisted Metal TV series

Aug. 25, 2023 Gran Turismo Film

Oct. 27, 2023 Five Nights at Freddy's Film

Apr. 5, 2024 Knuckles TV series

Apr. 10, 2024 Fallout TV series

Aug. 9, 2024 Borderlands Film

Dec. 20, 2024 Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Film

Apr. 4, 2025 A Minecraft Movie Film

Apr. 25, 2025 Until Dawn Film

Dec. 5, 2025 Five Nights at Freddy's 2 Film

Jan. 23, 2026 Return to Silent Hill Film

Jan. 30, 2026 Iron Lung Film

May 8, 2026 Mortal Kombat II Film

PS: Note the question being asked is "Will it be any good?" Not "Will it be profitable?"

Yeah, most of the list is pretty dismal, but there are some bright spots. Sonic movies. Fallout, Last of Us (and don’t forget Cyberpunk: Edgerunners) for TV.

I would call Fallout dismal (speaking as someone with over 1000h across all Fallout games sans 76).

Castlevania deserves a spot on the list.

The original Castlevania animated show was good, shame about the Warren Ellis situation. Would have loved to see him write Nocturne as well (which was fun but just had a much weaker script).

I recently saw "Exit 8" and I found it pretty intriguing. However, it's free adaptation of an experimental indie game. Funnily enough, I didn't even know that the movie was based on game. I was very surprised when I found out.

My kids enjoyed the Minecraft movie, and it was a commercial success.

The super mario movie (the new one). I really enjoyed it.

As for Doom, I have no clue. They managed to mess up Assassin's Creed, which supposedly has a great plot

I'll defend Uwe Boll's Postal movie. It's on par with the source material at least.

And IIRC Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion's Revenge was a fun time.

The Mortal Kombat movie from 1995 should be considered equal in quality to the works of Bach, Da Vinci, Shakespeare, et al. Mortal Kombat 1995 is a paragon of human expression.

If you are willing to accept TV shows, the first season of The Last of Us was actually better than I expected. It's a shame the second season never happened, and I will refuse to believe any evidence otherwise.

The Fallout series on Amazon has also be rather enjoyable. It doesn't take itself too seriously and has the kind of lighthearted, grimdark retrofuturism that makes the Fallout series so lovable.

Last Mortal Kombat. First Mortal Kombat - from 1996 or so. Cyberpunk Edgerunners.

I loved the Pokemon movies when I was kid.

Are they good?

Who cares?

What matters is if people enjoy them.

Those are not "Hollywood movies" but Detective Pikachu might count.

I saw one Pokemon movie and even as a child I found it lazy and disappointing. That's quite a feat...

The Last of Us [0], Fallout [1], Wreak It Ralph [2], Pokémon Detective Pikachu [3], Sonic the Hedgehog 3 [4], Sonic the Hedgehog 2 [5], Sonic the Hedgehog [6], Mortal Kombat 2 [7], Gran Turismo [8], etc.

Cynical content from the 90s and 2000s that lack "heart" like Quake, Doom, and the like are difficult to tie a cohesive story with because there was no story or plot underlying those IPs.

[0] - https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_last_of_us

[1] - https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/fallout

[2] - https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wreck_it_ralph

[3] - https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pokemon_detective_pikachu

[4] - https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sonic_the_hedgehog_3

[5] - https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sonic_the_hedgehog_2

[6] - https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sonic_the_hedgehog_2020

[7] - https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mortal_kombat_ii

[8] - https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gran_turismo_based_on_a_tru...

These had a lot of blood sweat and tears poured into them.

Most Hollywood game adaptations are the same as the Disney live actions. They have their hands on an IP, they want to flip it into easy money. Those turn out excruciatingly bad, because for an easy flip, you need to target for mass appeal, which waters down the material.

> These had a lot of blood sweat and tears poured into them

It goes both ways. Both the video game and the film/tv IP need to have some sort of deeper meaning and writing. You just can't write a cohesive story for a cynical multiplayer FPS like Quake, Wolfenstein II, Doom, etc whose whole appeal in the 1990s and 2000s was gore and shock value.

There's a reason people my age (below 35) have never played and oftentimes haven't even heard of Quake or Doom or Wolfenstein but have heard of Fallout or Half Life.

> Most Hollywood game adaptations are the same as the Disney live actions. They have their hands on an IP, they want to flip it into easy money...

I've given a list of the majority of video game movies created this past decade. They made bank and were well written and have mass appeal.

>You just can't write a cohesive story for a cynical multiplayer FPS like Quake, Wolfenstein II, Doom

Except you CAN! Doom and Quake films are begging to just be reskinned Aliens. Begging! I have no idea why someone doesn't just make this film.

But you could just watch Aliens.

> Except you CAN! Doom and Quake films are begging to just be reskinned Aliens

That's my point. The fact that you need to pitch these kinds of games as a knockoff of a better movie shows why they simply aren't viable IP.

Nerdy boomer nostalgia ain't cutting it for IP whose entire value was derived from being edgy and shock+gore driven.

>Nerdy boomer nostalgia

What group are you in? My impression is that they have the worst taste of all.

> What group are you in

Too young to really remember 9/11 but old enough to remember watching the airstrikes on Baghdad in 2003 and the Indian Ocean Tsunami. So I guess I'm technically GenZ or a very very young Millenial.

Essentially, I grew up during the PS2, Xbox, GameCube, Xbox360, Wii, and PS3 era.

Basically, I'm old, but HNers tend to be a decade or two older.

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